MediaTek Announces the "Premium" Mid-Range Helio P23 & P30

MediaTek is announcing a couple of new processors that are joining it's mid-range Helio P series. The Helio P23 and Helio P30. These two processors are part of what MediaTek calls its "premium" mid-range lineup. Meaning that these are in the high-end of the mid-range spectrum, processors that you would see in something like the Moto G. The Helio P23 and Helio P30 are mostly the same aside from a few differences, like the clock speed on the GPU, which is the Mali G71 MP2. The Helio P23 enjoys a clock speed of 770MHz while the Helio P30 has a clock speed of 950MHz. The other major difference is in the camera. The Helio P23 can handle dual 13-megapixel cameras or a single 24-megapixel camera. While the Helio P30 can handle dual 16-megapixel cameras or a single 25-megapixel camera.

Both of these new models run on an octa-core Cortex-A53 setup, with cores running at 2.3GHz. There is also MediaTek's CorePilot 4.0 technology inside, which has power aware scheduling, thermal management and UX monitoring. This allows the chipsets to work well in high-performance mode, and still offer a consistent user-experience. MediaTek also notes that both the Helio P23 and P30 offer up fast performance and reliable connectivity without disappointing battery life. That is a feature that many processors have been touting as of late, seeing as these smartphones are getting more and more powerful, but battery life hasn't really improved much. However lately, new silicon has really made some strides in making that battery last longer (and charge faster).

On the topic of connectivity, the Helio P23 does offer up dual SIM, but in a world-first, it offers dual 4G VoLTE/ViLTE support. And with carriers moving towards VoLTE recently, this means that the Helio P23 will be future-proof at least for the next few years. Both the Helio P23 and Helio P30 offer up a 4G LTE WorldMode modem. This means that these processors are able to support every single network in the world on one chipset. MediaTek did also mention that this includes CDMA for those on Sprint and Verizon in the States (or China Telecom in China). MediaTek uses a unique combination of Cat-7/13 which offers speeds of up to 300 megabit per second download and uploads of 150 megabit per second. There's also MediaTek's TAS 2.0 smart antenna technology inside which provides better signal so that users won't have to worry about losing signal in places where they should have signal.

Unique to the MediaTek Helio P30 is a new Vision Processing Unit or VPU. Which is a digital signal processor and it runs at 500MHz. Some of the advantages to having this new VPU is that since it is standalone, it frees up some of the resources on the device to do other things. So that you'll get a smoother experience, and it also won't eat up a ton of battery. MediaTek says that the VPU results in a huge reduction in power consumption, which is always a good thing to see. It also provides a performance boost, as the VPU can be used by itself or with other things. The VPU is available for OEM's to tap into and use with their software, or for third party manufacturers to use and create algorithms for.

Both chipsets will be available globally in the fourth quarter of this year. The Helio P30 will actually launch in China first, before it comes to other markets. Where most of MediaTek's partners are actually in China, this makes sense. MediaTek has not announced which of its partners are currently working with the Helio P23 and Helio P30 chipsets, nor who will be the first to release a device with these chipsets inside. And that's typical of semiconductor companies, as they want to allow their partners to make the announcements.

Alex has written for Androidheadlines since 2012 as Editor of the site and traveled the World to many of the biggest Smartphone and Technology events. Alex has a background in Technology and IT and Deep Passion for Everything Android and Google. His specialties lay in Smartphones of all budgets, Accessories, Home Automation and more. Contact him at [email protected]